Chapter 22-"Nice pajamas."

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 The next morning, I take my rightful seat in Mr. Brown's classroom, nervously anticipating Harry's notoriously late arrival. What will happen when he sits next to me? Will he talk to me? Apologize? The different possibilities swirl throughout my mind, raising my anxieties. All I know is that I refuse to be the one to create conversation. Harry was rude to me, and though I may be open to an explanation, I will not allow myself to desperately beg for his attention, no matter how much I crave his soothing presence.
  Surprisingly, he walks into the classroom right on time, sliding into the wooden desk next to mine. I wait for him to somehow draw my attention, a cough, a stutter, anything, but he offers nothing of the sort, staring straight ahead at the blackboard, ignoring me completely. I glance over at him out of the corner of my eye, hoping to subtly acquire the slightest bit of his attention, but he ignores me, causing my heart to sink within my chest. Was this all a game to him? This past month he has managed to invade my mind, sticking to every one of my thoughts, making it impossible to think of anything  unrelating to him. His kind words have filled my heart with adoration, causing me to fall deeper and deeper into this well of emotion.
  What does this mean? Why does his ignoring me have such a strong affect on me? They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but that doesn't pertain to me, does it? The only way that my heart could grow fonder is if I...loved him. I couldn't love him, could I? These emotions foreign to me are so toxic, yet indescribably intriguing. As much as I hate to admit it to myself, I am just beginning to scratch the surface of all that I feel towards the curly haired boy. These emotions have always been nagging at me from the back of my head, but until this moment, I've ignored them. I love him, I love Harry. I love the way that he kisses my forehead lightly. I love the way his legs entangle with my own as we lay in bed together, feeding off of each other's body heat. I love his laughter, echoing throughout a room, his happiness radiating off of him. I love the way that he tussles his hair when he's nervous, and the way that no matter what, I always know somehow that he will protect me from anything. He's like a drug to me, and I am willing to become an addict if it means I'll get the high. I am the moth to his flame, no matter how many times I get burned, I will keep coming back.
  These flooding emotions coursing throughout my body cause me to be unable to sit still. This self discovery has proven to be too much for me to handle, and I need an excuse to leave the classroom. Though I am relieved to have admitted my feelings for Harry to myself, I fear that my belated revelations have emerged too late for any action to be taken upon them. I am unaware as to what I've done to make Harry take a random disliking towards me, but I cannot change the fact that he now refuses to even look at me.
  Sighing to myself, I provide the only excuse to exit the room that I can think of. I push my chair out from under the desk, the legs scraping against the floor with a terrible screech. Harry's eyes follow me as I make my way up to the front of the classroom.
  "Mr. Brown?" I draw my educator's attention. He looks up at me from behind his desk, and offers me a kind smile. "May I go to Dr. Sullivan's office? I need to call my mother."


  My mother picks up on the first ring, obviously anticipating my phone call.
  "Hello?" Her voice is full of worry and desperation.
  "Mom?"
  "Bella! Oh my God! Are you ok?! Your father and I were trying to come out to visit you in the hospital, but your headmaster said not to. We were so worried, Bella." Her voice cracks in the middle of her speech, and my heart goes out to her. As crazy as she drives me, she is my mother, and I love her dearly.
  "I'm fine, I promise. I'm ok." I gently  soothe her. I hear her intake a breath in an attempt to calm herself down.
  "Tell me what happened that day. Dr. Sullivan explained it as best as he could, but I want to hear your side of the story." My mother pushes. I sigh, settling down in a chair positioned across from Dr. Sullivan's desk. He was kind enough to leave his office as I phoned my mother, and I now hold the huge space to myself.
  "Can we please talk about it another time? I promise I'll tell you the whole story, I just..don't want to relive it." I attempt to regain a hold of my crumbling composure. It all feels too much for me, that awful day, saving Harry from expulsion, and Harry deciding to no longer take any interest in me. The jumbled thoughts in my head make no sense to me, whirling around inside, tightly locked away. The only person who had a chance of receiving a key to the forbidden realm that is my head was Harry, but seeing as he wants nothing to do with me, it seems as if no one will ever truly care enough to venture through my dark mind.
  "Alright." My mother finally compromises. Moments of silence leak through our conversation, and the phone suddenly feels heavy. "You're still coming home for Thanksgiving, right?" She finally asks me. I nod before realizing that she can't see me. It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is only two weeks away, it feels as though I've only been away at school for a few day, but it's been more than a month.
  "Of course." The thought of returning home is comforting, and I hope these final weeks before my break go by quickly. I keep the conversation with my mother dragging on to waste time, I have no intention of going back to History class, and having to torturously sit next to Harry. She babbles on about nothing, and I find myself tuning her out for a large portion of her pointless stories. Eventually, the bell rings, and I am quick to tell her that I have to go, promising to call her more often.

*******

  My fatigued frame collapses onto my tiny cot once I return to my room after classes. I stare at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the cement as my thoughts roam elsewhere.
  "Hey." Naomi's voice says cooly. I hadn't heard her enter the room. I sit up in bed, watching as my roommate sits opposite of me on her identical mattress.
  "Hey."
  "How, um, how are you feeling? Like, you know, since being in the hospital." She asks me. She had inquired the same thing last night as soon as she saw me. I smile at her awkward yet kind worry.
  "I'm fine." I assure her.
  "Good." She nods her head, as if confirming to herself that I am not in any physical pain. Though I may not be bloodied or bruised, there is a hole in my heart that grows by the second. No matter how hard I aim to direct my thoughts away from Harry, something always reminds me of him. I can't even be on this single bed without my wandering mind tormenting me with memories of him lying with me, playing with my hair as I nuzzled my face into the crook of his neck.
  "Bella?" Naomi snaps me from my thoughts. When my eyes find her, she is no longer sitting across from me on her bed, she stands with her fingers grasping the door handle. "Did you hear what I said?" I shake my head, and she sighs as if I am headache inducing. "I'm going out tonight, I'll be back tomorrow morning." She repeats herself, twisting the silver knob, flinging the wooden door open.
  "You're going out on a Wednesday night?" I stop her from exiting. She turns to face me.
  "Yeah, you remember Dylan, right? I'm staying in his dorm, because his roommate got expelled, so we have the place to ourselves." She smirks. I offer a weak smile at the sound of Dylan's name. I haven't spoken to him since he'd asked me to hangout with him, and I'd declined his offer. I was too fearful to spend time with him, whereas I was open to spending it with Harry.
  "Oh. Is he your boyfriend?" I can't help but ask. Naomi shrugs.
  "I don't really know. We hookup a lot, but he doesn't like labels. So I guess we're kind of an item, but not at the same time. Does that make sense?" No, it doesn't.
  "Yes." I say.
  "Good. I'll see you tomorrow." She smiles at me, stepping out of the room. She is about to close the door, but she stops herself. "You're not still hanging around Harry, are you?" She pesters me. I'll admit, she is very adamant about me having nothing to do with him. Lucky for her, she got her wish.
  "No." I shake my head, my heart plummeting within the confinements of my ribcage.
"Good." She gleams, obviously satisfied, turning away from me once more. She closes the door behind her, and I am left alone. A wave of loneliness washes over me, tugging me down under its powerful undertow. I need to do something, anything to distract myself from this self destructive feeling. I decide to start my homework, plucking my backpack from the floor, I pile my bed with notebooks, and textbooks, overpowering thoughts of Harry with math problems, and foreign languages.

  By the time I finish, it's already almost 7. I know that I should join my peers down at the dining hall, but I don't seem to have much of an appetite. Instead of moping around my dorm for the remainder of the night, I think it best to prepare myself for bed, and watch a movie. Once in my pajamas, I pop a DVD into my laptop, shutting off the lamp beside me, and falling asleep to a pointless movie which fails to entertain me.

  I wake to a pounding on the door. Insistent thumps are forced upon the wooden frame, and I fear that it will splinter beneath whomever stands on the other side. I groggily slump out of bed, padding my bare feet across the cold floors to open the door. I touch the metal handle, preparing to greet whoever stands on the other side, but once they speak, I freeze.
  "Bella! Open the damn door!"
Harry.

I feel apprehensive to allow him inside, considering the fact that I have no idea how to handle myself around him. I am angry at him for being so cold towards me, but I fear that once he says as little as one word to me, my hard exterior will dissolve, leaving me unguarded and defenseless.
  "Bella!" He bellows. I fling the door open before someone calls campus security with a complaint about the noise. He says nothing to me, stomping right past me into my room.
  "What took you so long?" He snaps, swiping his curls to the side. His eyes are glassy, and red rimmed.
  "I was asleep, and you showed up unannounced, what did you expect?" I counter, my voice just as harsh as his. "And are you drunk?" How stupid can he be? He was just threatened with expulsion, and now he's drinking on campus? If he's caught, he is sure to be sent back to England. It's almost as if he's begging for trouble. Then again, if he is found in my room at this late hour, we will both be in obscene amounts of trouble.
  "Nice pajamas." He smirks, eyeing my long blue pants.
  "Why are you here?" I ignore his snarky comment. His glazed eyes meet mine.
  "I missed you." He unexpectedly proclaims. I try my best to stand my ground, and keep up my angered composure, but it is disintegrating with each passing moment.
  "You saw me this morning."
  "But we didn't talk."
  "And who's fault was that?" I cross my arms over my chest, cocking an eyebrow at him. He sighs, and sits himself down on my bed without permission.
  "Well technically it was yours." He can't be serious.
  "I won't even pretend to know what you're talking about." I glare down at him.
  "You were being weird." He says nonchalantly, as if it's common knowledge.
  "Actually, you were the one being weird." I point out. He shakes his head, knitting his eyebrows together exasperatedly.
  "No, I was reacting to your weirdness. In Dr. Sullivan's office you said it was your fault, and you...you took the blame..."
  "I know, I was there." I snip.
  "Well, it freaked me out." I scoff at him, anger bubbling inside of me.
  "It freaked you out that I took the blame for you, or it freaked you out to think that someone could actually care about you?" I raise my voice. He rises from his seated position, taking a few steps toward me.
  "Care about me? How does you acting stupid show that you care about me?" The volume of his voice increasing as well.
  "Why can't you just be grateful for what I did? I saved you from expulsion, and you repay me by acting like a jerk!" I shout at him, my face inches from his.
  "I didn't ask for your help! Why couldn't you have just minded your own business for once?"
  "Because Harry, not only you would have been affected by your expulsion!" I cannot stop the tears from slipping down my cheeks, as my anger boils over. "It would kill me if you left!" My voice cracks, as heavy rain thrums from my blue eyes. His features noticeably soften, but traces of anger still linger on his angelic face. "I don't understand why you can't see that I-" I am silenced by his lips forcefully crashing down onto my own.                  Thanks for reading! Sorry this update was so late, I've been super busy! I'll update when this chapter has 10 votes :) xo  Twitter: @slamminstyles

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